The cheapest and most expensive places to rent in NJ

A new report finds renters in New Jersey are having an increasingly difficult time being able to afford a decent place to live.

The Out of Reach report, prepared by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, finds rental prices rose on average about 4 percent last year for the state's 1.15 million rental households.

"I don’t think it’s surprising that New Jersey is a very expensive place for renters. We’re the 6th most expensive place in the nation,” said Arnold Cohen, the senior policy coordinator for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

He noted the report concludes that “a family needs to earn almost $56,810 just to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.”

Cohen said this is a very serious problem because about a third of state residents are living in rental units and “almost half of renters cannot afford what’s considered a fair market rent here in the state of New Jersey.”

He said the typical two-bedroom rental apartment in New Jersey costs about $1,460 a month, and to be able to afford that someone would need to be earning at least $26 dollars an hour, which is significantly more than many workers are making in the Garden State.

“And again, we’re not talking about some of these luxury apartments with a doorman or fancy rooftops. We’re just talking about a modest apartment," he said.

The most affordable & expensive places to rent in NJ

How much income that renters need to make to be able to afford the rents in these counties and metro areas in New Jersey, ranked from cheapest to most expensive.

Passaic County

According to the report, rents rose in some parts of the Garden State, especially urban areas, significantly more than 4 percent.

Cohen said the guideline has always been you should be spending a third of your income on housing but “increasingly what you have is people spending 40, 50 percent of their income on their housing costs.”

“The new norm has become people spending more of their income on housing costs, and then a lot of times people will double up in order to have a place that they can afford," he said.

“People are skimping on other things in order to be able to have a decent apartment because you need a place to live.”

He said to begin to rectify the situation, New Jersey must focus on building more affordable housing and not divert funds that are supposed to be dedicated for that purpose.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been doing this for a long time and we’re facing a similar situation with the current proposed state spending plan,” he said. “If you look at our neighboring states, they’re allocating funds for lower cost housing and that makes a difference.”